- Suicide is painless,
- It brings on many changes,
- And I can take or leave it if I please . . .
We were shown that candidates could not die. Richard and Jack sat in the Black Rock. Richard could not die by suicide but someone else could kill him. Jack agreed to do so, then sat down knowing that the volatile explosives would not go off. We saw various characters, like Mrs. Kluge, beg to be killed by a comrade. Patchy lived more lives than an alley cat. Michael could not commit suicide in NYC. The standard rule was an island person could not commit suicide.
Then we got into a possible exception: you could kill yourself if you were sacrificing yourself to help others. Charlie drowning in the Looking Glass was the prime example. What happened to him was that he turned into a ghost to haunt Hurley at Santa Rosa (including physically slapping him on the side of the head after he admitted he was dead.) Juliet banging on the bomb (which may or may not have gone off) would have been a sacrifice to save the castaways. Even Jacob being stabbed by Ben in the statue was like suicide, because Jacob made no attempt to defend himself.
Which leads us to the red shirt parade. The lack of any value to human life is becoming appalling in the plot. I once remarked that if all the candidates got together with MIB, the Numbers would act like a combination lock and seal him away forever. Now, it appears, that the candidates are merely a combination lock in death to release MIB into the wild. With the caveat that MIB cannot directly kill any candidate. Except, he put the bomb in Jack's back pack so that is murder, plain and simple.
I also caught grief a few weeks back remarking that the plot appeared to be headed towards all the characters getting killed off . . . which led to remarks like "then what's the point?" Exactly. We still do not know what The Point of the story is . . . . and the constant reshuffling of character groups into nonsensical situations continues to mask it.
The multiple demise of characters in The Candidate was anti-climatic. First, poor Frank had nothing more than four word throw-away phrases for the entire season. He was kept around because he was the pilot (of a terribly broken airplane) who could fly the castaways home. In the end, his sole purpose was to be a red shirt (a gruesome death prop). Second, poor Sayid, the zombie who had nothing to live for, tries to turn into hero by taking the bomb away from the castaways. Boom goes the Iraqi! A sacrificial suicide mission to end his character or as a candidate an nullified suicide attempt a la Michael in NYC?
The whole Jin-Sun reunion was blah cottage cheese last week. The whole set up for their Looking Glass moment really took away from any shred of common sense parental instincts. First, submarine fixtures like cabinets are anchored to the hull and not free standing projectiles. Second, Sun getting "trapped" behind some twisted pipes meant she squeezed behind them before the explosion. It was too soap opera gimmickry as they said their final goodbyes, without mentioning once, their baby daughter or the need for one parent to survive to raise her. Unless this is a lesson that modern parents are self-absorbed narcissistic shells, the scene had no power over me. It does not answer if one or both were the lighthouse candidate. It would mean Sun died at the hands of another person (MIB) while Jin's death was not a sacrifice but a suicide (which is against the rules).
It may come down to that the only rule on the show is that there were no rules. So what would be the Point then?
We then have the problem with Kate's bullet wound. It clearly appeared to be a direct hit in the area where her left subdavian artery is located. If the bullet hit or nicked that artery, medical science says she would be unconscious in 2 seconds, and be dead in 3.5 seconds. So we must conclude that this was another magic bullet, more show than go.
Then we have the problem of Hurley, Kate, Jack and Sawyer miraculously escaping a sinking submarine faster than it surfacing to get rid of the bomb. If they got out, what about the experienced sub crew? Pretty unbelievable. The whole ticking time bombs have been a real thorn in the sides of many viewers because of the unbelievability of the situations. In this dud, the castaways get below and find the bomb in less than a minute because Jack asks for his back pack to treat Kate's injury. Now, a submarine in open seas can dive at a rate of approximately 50 feet per minute. If the command was given to Frank to have the captain surface immediately, the submarine would have been no more than 50-60 feet below the surface. Plenty of time to surface in three minutes to throw away the bomb. Further, the submarine was docked inside a cove-harbor. It did not have the time to get into "open water" to submerge deep into the ocean. These simple but important facts really make the scene go sour quickly. It was another poorly crafted script that tried to lead us to an emotional parlay, four character death sequence.
Another insanely dumb, suicidal move was Widmore moving his beach sonic fences to the station buildings/bear cages. It shows incompetence or an alliance with Flocke because it shows a lack of common sense. And the remaining Widmore red shirts went down like penned cattle at a slaughterhouse. Affirming, once again, that human life is treated like candy being dispensed from a PEZ container.
A census of the remaining red meat reveals:
Beach rats: Jack, Hurley, bleeding Kate and head trauma Sawyer. Another case of head injury, which probably will become the "portal" for Sawyer to reunite with Alt-World Juliet. At least, the conscious group had their first community "cry."
Widmore's mercenaries: Widmore, Zoe and 0-? red shirts, and a well Desmond. I don't think Widmore has any one left except Desmond and Zoe. Desmond is the only one on the main island.
Flocke's group: Flocke (MIB), Claire. Or zombie Claire as we like to call her.
The Others: Cindy, Emma and Zach. I also think that the three are the only ones left from the Temple Others who joined Flocke.
The Jungle: 3 mysterious boys who stalk and taunt Flocke. The children's relationship to the island and Flocke remain unknown, except for the comments regarding the Rules.
The Whispers and Ghosts: Ghost Jacob and Ghost Michael have appeared, but whether they are truly trapped souls who cannot move on, or manifestations of Jacob, MIB or some one else, is unclear.
Richard's Group: murderous immortal Richard, murderous former leader Ben, and death talking con man island native Miles. It almost has a duck-duck-goose ring to it. Murderer-murderer-psychic!
So we have five 815ers left: Hurley, Kate, Jack, Sawyer and zombie Claire.
We have Richard, Ben and Miles running around on their own.
We have five other people left: Widmore, Zoe, Cindy, Emma and Zach.
That is an unlucky 13 red shirts remaining on the island.
Is there any heroic suicide sacrificing people left? I suspect Cindy would continue to protect the two children to the end, as she has shown some maternal instincts totally lacking with Claire or the other women confined to the island. I suspect that if Sawyer believes he has nothing else to live for, he might dive on a grenade to save some one. Jack's idea of staying behind was a form of self-sacrifice so that really does not count. I don't think Kate would do anything because of crazy Claire's mental state and her cross-eyed mission to reunite mother and child. Richard has suicidal tendencies but knows he cannot kill himself. All the candidates are supposedly in the same situation as Richard. That leaves Ben or Miles, which deep down, are similar creatures: they view the world and their place as what is in their own best interest . . . which is living to fight another day.
One other observation which may or may not play out. There are very few "natives" left. We know Miles was born on the island in 1977. We don't know if Widmore, Cindy, or Zoe were born on the island or was brought to it by Jacob. My "guess" is that Miles is the only native islander left. As such, does he "inherit" the island from Jacob?
